Edging under the road bridge at Dornie we emerged into the calm of Loch Alsh. Eilean Donan castle lay on our port bow, with the mountains of Skye to starboard. Our destination was the Sound of Sleat, hidden behind the Ratagan Hills.
My Longliner was fairly heavily laden today – two chunky anglers plus camping gear make an impact! Happily, running through Kyle Rhea we were lent a helping hand by the start of the ebb tide.
Despite a stopping for a bit of spinning en route, we only picked up a few small coalies and pollack in the narrows. However we finally managed some small mackerel as we popped into the 4 knot tide run at the entrance to Glenelg Bay. Bait sorted!
Glenelg
Anchor down in Glenelg, and we dropped baits to the sandy ground below. Tiny critters instantly started to shred them and our first hour was fishless apart from a single 3 inch whiting 🙁 I was wondering about a move when the whiting were scared off and Trev picked up one of the culprits – a nice spurdog of around 9lbs.
I followed up with one around the 5 or 6lb mark, but then virtually every other fish made it into double figures. Quite feisty fish too, and not keen on coming aboard!
I hadn’t bothered with skate gear but Trev had taken one along, being more masochistic than me. Needless to say, he found himself playing a Common on his light spurdog rod… This went on for a while before his line had enough. Round one to the skate!
We fished on until mid-afternoon, catching plenty more spurdog until the tide slackened off. Given we needed to find somewhere to lay up for the night, now seemed as good a time as any to explore further down the Sound.
Hoisting anchor produced this novelty, in the shape of large spiny starfish. I was rather surprised by just how sharp it’s spines actually were!
Somewhere to camp…
Trundling down Sleat we checked out a couple of locations both for camping and for fishing. The Sandaig Isles looked great for an overnight camp but were well carpeted in visitors. I’d expected this, given it’s the only decent beach in the area, but it was worth a look. As a bonus we picked up more small coalies, pollack and mackerel – and were attacked by yet more large spurdog.
In the end we chose to anchor up in the lee of a small headland on the mainland. This offered shelter from the tide and the forecast light southerly. Very Canadian or Scandanavian looking too, with clear waters surrounded by a thick forest of tall conifers.
Space was a little tight, but we managed to find a spot to pitch our tent. Midges appreciated our choice too, but weren’t too bad!
More Fishing
Now sorted for the evening, we headed back out onto the Sound of Sleat for another spell of fishing. It didn’t take long for more good spurdog to appear and we were soon busy dealing with them.
This time it was Trev’s “proper” skate rod that was attacked. I was left to deal with his spurdog whilst he attempted to prise a lump of fish from the seabed.
This took a fair while but eventually pressure told and a decent sized fish was encouraged towards daylight. We had a decent run of tide in the top 50 feet or so, and this fish took advantage. Trev applied more muscle and managed to get the skate planing across the water surface.
Finally alongside the boat we decided not to try and lift it aboard, and simply released it at the side. She was a good size, but nothing we haven’t seen before. This one had clearly had a bad experience in the past however, with quite severe damage to the leading edge of her wing. Well healed, and probably caused by a rope entanglement, but not great to see.
My turn next, as a skate grabbed my spurdog bait. So much for trying to avoid them! A long haul eventually got this one to the surface. It’s nose was poking out the water just 20 metres behind the boat but my light gear couldn’t persuade it to plane along the surface as Trevor’s had done. All my hard work was undone in an instant as the leader knot finally gave up the ghost and pinged…
We headed back to shore a little before sunset, as we had a date with dinner we didn’t want to miss. Nothing clever tonight – just a couple of steaks followed by apples baked in the embers. It’s kind of my goto camping dinner when I want something relatively simple but tasty!
Beers in hand we sat by the fire and watched the last of the light fade over Skye. Very romantic 🙂
Day Two
Next morning was more of a bacon butty type affair, with coffee of course.
Trev hauled in the Longliner from her overnight mooring whilst I just watched encouragingly. Midges did their best to grab breakfast from us as we loaded up, but it didn’t take long to get afloat again.
We’d a shortish spell on a new spot, pulling in yet more good spurdog.
I managed my first and only LSD from here. Other than that (and a stray codling last night), everything else was a spurdog or a skate.
I hauled anchor before the ebb tide picked up too much and we headed back through the Kyle Rhea. We’d clearly established that the Sound of Sleat had plenty of spurdog but I wanted to see if there was much in Loch Alsh too.
Lochs Alsh and Duich
Unfortunately, Loch Alsh proved to be pretty dead, at least where we dropped anchor. Nevertheless Trev managed to hook his skate number three, a decent male fish which we released alongside. This time we had an audience circling us, just to add a little pressure for Trev.
Apart from the skate and some doggie type bites there was little activity in Loch Alsh, so we upped anchor. Heading round to Loch Duich we stopped in the tide run opposite Eilean Donan and managed to top up bait supplies.
Final throw of the dice was a conger session in Duich. I’d had some nice fish here many years before with Ian, so it seemed worth a shot.
Two hours later we finally gave up and headed back past Eilean Donan and into Loch Long. Nothing at all had disturbed out baits – not so much as a shrimp nibble 🙁 Perhaps an anti-climax after excellent fishing a few miles away, but we couldn’t really complain too much!
What a great account of another great trip, with a super campsite too. I had my boat on Loch Duich for a week, before covid. I too found it devoid of fish, but the tide run at Dornie was interesting though, 3 lochs draining at once. Some good fish you had there too, I’m impressed! A hard life indeed.
Hi Ash,
Great trip indeed, and Glenelg isn’t an area I’ve visited by boat before so we were fishing blind to some extent. I’ll definitely need to go back at some point! Duich has only once (very briefly) been kind to me, fishing from Ian’s boat on a very tough week in October – horizontal sleet, the boat doing a 360 around the anchor rope – that sort of thing. One day we’d a single 2 hour spell just before dark when we started hauling out congers, maybe 6 in around 90 minutes. Nothing bigger than mid-twenties but fantastic compared to the preceding days. Other than that it was pretty much fishless!
Cheers,
Doug
Another great report, some of the spurdog and skate marks seemed quite close to the shore and your overnight camping spot looked great; do you think shore fishing for spurs would be productive in the Sandaig and Glenelg area?
Yes, I think you’d be in with a shout at some spots and it is something I might try myself later in the year when the boat fishing gets too hard going. I have only fished this area once from the shore and failed completely, but I know others have had more success. You do need to be aware that access to some of the Sound is very difficult (including our campsite), although other areas would be simple beach fishing from the roadside – but possibly a decent cast needed to hit depth.